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Henry Petroski, "America's poet laureate
of technology" (Kirkus Reviews) -- author of
The Pencil and The Evolution of Useful Things
-- now gives us an entertaining and perceptive study of
design in everyday life, while revealing the checkered pasts,
and some possible futures, of familiar objects.
Chairs, lightbulbs, cup holders, toothbrushes,
doorknobs, light switches, potato peelers, paper bags, duct
tape -- as ubiquitous as these may be, they are still works
in progress. The design of such ordinary items demonstrates
the simple brilliance of human creativity, while at the
same time showing the frustration of getting anything completely
right. Nothing's perfect, and so the quest for perfection
continues to continue.
In this engrossing and insightful book,
Petroski takes us inside the creative process by which common
objects are invented and improved upon in pursuit of the
ever-elusive perfect thing. He shows us, for instance, how
the disposable paper cup became a popular commercial success
only after the public learned that shared water glasses
could carry germs; how it took years, an abundance of business
panache, and many discarded models -- from cups that opened
like paper bags to those that came with pleats -- for the
inventor of the paper cup to arrive at what we now use and
toss away without so much as a thought for its fascinating
history.
A trenchant, surprising evaluation of why
some designs succeed and others don't, Small Things Considered
is also an utterly delightful study of human nature.
Henry Petroski, the Aleksandar S. Vesic
Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history
at Duke University, lives in Durham, North Carolina. He
is the author of ten previous books.
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